


long live all the magic we made

by MaddieandChimney



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Good Things Happen Bingo, and Howie's mom dying, and mentions of domestic violence, eventually..., mentions of canon daniel buckley, mentions of doug kendall, tw: cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29930172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: They're five when they meet in kindergarten, Maddie's hand holding onto his tightly, and he's not sure he ever wants to let go. And then suddenly, they're eighteen and she's leaving him behind as she goes to start a new life in New York and he doesn't think he'll ever be okay again.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley, Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Comments: 23
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

Howard is five when his parents take him to a different country and everything changes. He misses his family, he misses his home and he misses his friends. But his mom is happy, she doesn’t stop smiling as she talks of sunny days and beaches and places they can visit together whilst his dad works all day, every day. He’s used to it just being the two of them; him and his mom against the world. That’s how it’s always been, until she’s  _ betraying _ him and dropping him off at a place she calls school and tells him that he’s going to make friends and he’s going to have fun. 

He doubts it. 

He’s five years old, his face soaked with his own tears, snot running down his nose, when he realises his mom is always right. His little hand holds onto the teacher’s as tightly as he possibly can, whimpering for his mother. It stops, almost immediately when she reaches out a hand for him and her smile shines so brightly that he thinks it’s even better than the sun that his mom loves so much and from that very second, when his hand is in hers, he realises school maybe isn’t that bad. 

“My name’s Maddie Buckley.” He doesn’t even notice the teacher leaving his side, too caught up in the girl in front of him. She has hair down to her hips, in two braids that hang over her shoulders and she’s wearing the prettiest, brightest, yellowest dress he’s ever seen and it really is as though she is the actual sun. He’s five years old when he decides that Maddie is his favourite name in the whole world. 

“Howard Han.” His voice is barely a whisper, shyness overcoming him as he bites down on his bottom lip and swings his body from side to side. He’s not usually allowed to talk to strangers but he thinks this is okay because she’s just like him, only she’s a girl and she’s pretty. The prettiest girl he thinks he has ever seen and will ever see again. 

She tugs on his hand with a giggle, “Howie.”  _ Howie _ , no one has ever called him that before and the tears are long forgotten, using the back of his sleeve to wipe at his face before he follows her further into the brightly coloured room. “You can sit by me, we’re gonna be best friends.” 

Best friends. He likes the sound of that. 

* * *

It’s the family joke that wherever Maddie is, Howie isn’t too far behind and vice versa. They do  _ everything  _ together. Maddie’s dad often jokes that their hands may as well be super glued together because no matter what, one of them is always leading the other into some kind of trouble. 

She’s eight years old when she presses her lips to his for the first time, it lasts barely a second before she laughs and runs off and Howie chases after her, a huge smile on his face and she’s entirely certain that his laughter is her favourite sound in the whole world. 

Maddie feels lucky because meeting Howie when she was five meant that their families became friends too. Except Howie’s dad, he didn’t really seem all that interested in hanging out at family events, she could probably count on one hand how many times he had turned up but his mom always did and her English was getting better by the day and Mrs Han, Mrs Lee and her own mom had become the best of friends. Just like her and Howie and just like Evan and Kevin. 

She can hear her dad and Mr Lee laughing as they argue over the best way to barbecue some meat and the three women laugh over their second bottle of wine whilst the two youngest boys play loudly nearby. Her older brother, Daniel, had died over a year ago and this is the happiest she’s seen her parents since and at eight, Maddie thinks this could be paradise, staring at the scene in front of her with her best friend's arms wrapping around her from behind. 

There had been an overwhelming sense of sadness that had consumed the Buckley household, it had always been lingering there for as long as she could remember. Daniel was five when he was diagnosed with cancer and she had been three, so she couldn’t really remember a life without Daniel being sick. And then Evan had been born two years later and Daniel was gone not even two years after that. But Howie had been there for her and she can remember Mr and Mrs Lee and Mrs Han always turning up with food and words of comfort. Kevin was only a year older than Evan and the two of them had become best friends, too and it meant that even if he couldn’t remember life with Daniel, her little brother would always know life with  _ two _ big brother’s in Kevin and Howie. 

It’s just nice to see her mom smiling again and her dad has that spark back in his eyes and she thinks that maybe, just maybe, they might be okay and they might be happy. Just one big, nearly happy family and, at the centre of her world, it was her and Howie  _ against  _ the world. 

* * *

“You’ll never not be my best friend, right?” 

Howie wonders if he’s watched far too many teen movies at Maddie’s insistence, the two of them staring at each other before she holds up her little finger with a huge smile on her face. The two of them are hiding out in her treehouse, tears still making tracks down his face before he links his little finger with hers. 

His dad always made it clear that LA was temporary, that their home was Korea and eventually, they’d go back and he’d been dreading that day since he’d started to settle. And then it came, and it went and they had stayed, and it came again and again, they had stayed and then finally, it really had come and his dad had a suitcase and then suddenly it was just him and his mom, six years after they had gotten there in the first place. And maybe it should have felt as though something, or someone, was missing but really, his dad had never been around anyway. Mostly, it felt as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders the second his dad had walked out of that door for good. 

Most of all, his mom’s laughter sounded like freedom and they got to spend even more time with Mr and Mrs Lee and Mr and Mrs Buckley and best of all, _ Maddie.  _ Kind, wonderful, beautiful Maddie who had been his best friend for seven years and he doesn’t know what he’ll do without her. Especially now. It’s been a year since his dad had left, and at twelve years old, he just had to sit down with his mom as a doctor explained cancer to them. 

His only experience of cancer, and his mom’s too, is limited to Maddie’s big brother, Daniel. And he’d died five years ago. He can remember holding Maddie’s hand at the funeral and wiping away the tears that had fallen down her face. He can remember his own mom looking after Evan so the Buckley’s could mourn and now here they were. Five years later, faced with the same word, the same fear. But now Maddie is wiping his tears away and she’s holding his hand and he doesn’t know what he’d do without her. 

“I will  _ always _ be your best friend, Howie.” The words are said with so much conviction, as she sits crossed legged in front of him before she leans forward to press her forehead against his with a smile on her face. “I know you’re scared, it’s okay.” She never tells him not to cry, she never makes him feel embarrassed. Though sometimes, he can remember the angry shove of his father in an attempt to stop him from crying.  _ Only babies cry.  _

Maddie’s thumb brushes gently over his cheek until her lips press against his, soft and quick but she doesn’t run away like she had when they were eight. Instead, she grins at him when she pulls back, “Maybe we can have a treehouse sleepover tonight.” It’s with a smile, equally as bright as hers that he nods his head. 

* * *

High school is  _ hard _ . Maddie and Howie have always done everything together, but for the first time, he’s falling behind whilst she’s excelling and she’s in classes without him and everything is different. She misses him, even though he’s right there - they walk to school together, they walk home together and they spend pretty much every single afternoon and weekend together but school isn’t the same without him by her side. 

The hardest thing in the world is knowing how much he’s struggling and how there’s nothing she can do to help. His mom is dying; he hasn’t said that in so many words but she had overheard Mrs Han telling her mom that she would look after Daniel for her in heaven. It’s not fair; cancer isn’t fair, it’s already stolen her big brother from her and now it’s taking Howie’s mom. She’s angry for her own family, for what was stolen from them and that her brother would never get the years that she had or that her little brother is going to get. He’s almost reached the milestone Daniel never got. And now she’s angry for Howie and for Mrs Han - Lilly as she preferred to be called these days, since the divorce had finalised and she was finally free.

Howie’s dad wasn’t dead but he was going to be an orphan in every sense of the word and if suddenly, his dad decided that his son was good enough for him, then he’d take away her best friend to Korea. Suddenly, that big, happy family they’d once created is disappearing - if Lilly is gone, if Howie is gone… there’s a big slice of their happiness missing and she doesn’t remember life without her best friend. 

He’s drifting away, not just from her but from life. There’s a sadness in his eyes, dark circles giving away that he never sleeps and he stinks like cigarette smoke all of the time and she wishes she could hold him and tell him that it’s going to be okay but she’s not sure it will be. 

He’s a few weeks shy of his fifteenth birthday when her parents get the call from Mr and Mrs Lee. It’s late at night, the air is cool but she finds herself running as fast as she possibly can from her own house to their house. She can barely breathe by the time she gets there and Howie is sitting on the porch swing and she wonders if he knew she would come or if he just needed to see the stars. Neither of them say a word as she wraps her arms tightly around him and slips onto his lap, crying with him the moment his arms loop around her waist. 

Each sob that falls from his lips breaks her heart and she can’t tell him it’s going to be okay because she doesn’t know what she’d do without her mom. But she knows that when Daniel died, it had hurt so much and eventually, over time, she could remember the happier times more so than the sad. The anger still remains, the grief is overwhelming at times and she tries not to think about how his bedroom is still the same as it had been before the last time he’d been admitted to hospital and she tries not to think about how her mom can barely get out of bed around his birthday. 

“It hurts, Maddie, it hurts so much.” The way he talks, the gasps of air he takes, the desperation and the way he’s clinging to the back of her top is like nothing she’s ever heard before. She moves to hide her face in the top of his head, pressing kisses against his hair, rubbing his back as she does. She’d do anything to take away his pain but she knows she never can. “I miss her.” 

“I know, me too.” 

* * *

Maddie thrives in high school; she’s intelligent and sporty and popular and everything he isn’t. It’s not her fault that he would rather spend his time either not in school at all, or under the bleachers when he is. It’s not her fault that his grades drop and he doesn’t even know how he’s going to get from one day to the next, let alone think about colleges. They’d made so many promises to each other, they were both meant to go to NYU. Maddie wanted to be a nurse, she always had and he wanted to study art. 

He can’t bring himself to paint anymore, he can’t do  _ anything _ because he’s seventeen and his mom is dead, his dad wants nothing to do with him and he’s living with two people he has no biological relation to and he feels more of a burden than anything else. It’s easing, slowly, the pain and the self-imposed loneliness. And he knows that no matter how long he leaves it, whether it’s days or weeks, whenever he turns up to Maddie’s house, she always welcomes him with open arms as though it’s only been hours. She’s the one person in his life who has never judged him, or made him feel less than or stupid. 

She just tells him that no one can tell him how to grieve, there’s no handbook on how he should feel about losing the woman he loved so much. The woman who had wanted so, so much for him. He doesn’t want to push her away, he hates himself for doing it but she’s going places and he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to leave LA behind. This is where his mom lived, this is where all of his memories lie and he no longer knows what he wants to do with his life. But going to New York to study art definitely isn’t it when he hasn’t picked up a paintbrush since his mom’s death. 

Maddie is still his best friend though, they’ve been through too much to even consider anything else. And Mr and Mrs Lee are still good friends with her parents and Kevin and Evan hang out all the time, he just feels like there’s a wedge between them forced by his own fear of dragging her down with him. She has so many friends, she’s on the track team, she takes all AP classes, she is always surrounded by people and laughter and he just feels as though there’s this darkness around him. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me?” Howie frowns as he slowly closes his locker door at the sound of a familiar voice on the other side, chewing down on his bottom lip as he looks at her in confusion. High school is coming to an end and before they know it, she’ll be off to New York, taking over the world of nursing and he might never see her again. He knows that she loves LA just as much as he does and just as much as his mother had but the world is a big place and Maddie Buckley could go anywhere and do anything. 

“Uh… ask you?” It’s not often they talk in school, they don’t run in the same circles, and he tries to avoid her. High school is hard and he doesn’t want to embarrass her, even if she insists otherwise. 

Her eyes roll and he can’t help but think about how gorgeous she is. He’d always thought of her like sunshine and even then, she’s standing there in a bright yellow dress, just as she had in kindergarten and it feels as though his heart is going to soar from his chest in a way it absolutely shouldn’t when they’re seventeen and they’re meant to only be best friends. “To prom.” 

Howie’s nose scrunches up in confusion, looking around as though it’s some kind of joke, although he knows that Maddie would never do something so cruel. “Um, I kinda figured you’d go with one of the jock jerks, I heard Brandon asked you?” 

“I told Brandon that I already had a date to the prom because you promised me that we would do all of our proms together and now you’re… what? Abandoning me?” He gulps down the lump in his throat, remembering the pinky promise they had made and now, alongside the intense, burning look in her eyes, he knows he can’t get out of it. He had no intention of going to their senior prom but then she’s looking at him and he’s reminded of every promise and every smile, every hug, every kiss, every whispered word over the almost thirteen years since they’d met and he finds himself smiling. A genuine smile that feels almost foreign on his lips before he takes a deep breath. 

Slowly, his hand reaches for hers, “Okay, well, I guess I don’t have one of those stupid prom proposal things planned but… will you go to prom with me?” 

Her head tilts to the side as she smirks, pulling her hand from his before she shrugs her shoulders, “Hmm, you’ll have to do better than that, Howard Han.” And then she winks and she’s gone and he misses her almost immediately. 

* * *

Maddie wears yellow because she knows it’s his favourite colour on her. Her long hair falls in gentle curls over her shoulders and her mom bursts into tears whilst her dad asks her, for the hundredth time, if she and Howie are finally dating. She knows that the adults have some sort of bet going about when she and her best friend are going to admit to having feelings for each other and she’d be lying if she said they were wrong. She thinks she’s been in love with him for as long as she can remember but he’s been through so much and she’s about to leave for college and he isn’t coming. 

This wasn’t the plan. Him staying behind in LA was never the plan whilst she runs off to NYU for four years but… she figures, they’ve waited this long, what’s another four? 

His tie matches her dress and she knows this is exactly how she wants to end her time in school - with him by her side, just as he always had been from the beginning. She doesn’t leave his side all night, taking advantage of the magic of the evening to touch him as much as she possibly can. She brushes her fingers through his hair, she nudges her nose against his and their foreheads press against each other as they sway from side to side along with the music. It’s beautiful, and he’s handsome and she loves him. And not for the first time, she wants to kiss him, so she does and the rest of the world melts away when his lips are against hers and she wishes, more than anything, that he’d come to New York and be the artist he’d always planned on being.

His hands are on her waist and she can feel his breath against her lips when they pull back just enough, barely able to hear the music over the sound of her own heart thumping. Maddie misses him, she misses his mom, she misses the family they once had and the person he could have been if not so consumed by the devastation of losing the wonderful woman who had been so vibrant and so good. He’s right there in front of her and she still misses him, she dreads how that’s going to feel when she’s thousands of miles away in New York. 

It feels like the end and it hurts more than she could have ever imagined.

* * *

He’s eighteen and he feels embarrassed at the tears falling down his cheeks as he wraps his arms tightly around his best friend and holds her as close as he possibly can. There’s a lump in his throat that won’t shift and he’s not sure it ever will. He doesn’t remember life without her and he doesn’t know how to do LA without her by his side. 

There’s tears pouring down her face as she sniffs, finally pulling back before her little finger links with his and her forehead presses against his. She’s going to college, she’d done everything she had said she always wanted to do and he’s so proud of her. He’d barely scraped by high school, he’d just managed to get a job at a restaurant, just trying to get through every single day as it came. 

“You’ll always have a home with me.” 

Her words are said with such conviction that he believes her, a smile on his face despite the tears, as his little finger tightly interlocks with hers and he nods his head, “And you’ll always have a home with me.” 

And then she’s gone and for the first time, he’s in LA without his best friend and it feels empty and he wishes, more than anything, he could have gone with her. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of domestic violence, mentions of death.

Maddie is nineteen when she meets Doug and even though how she feels for him is nothing in comparison to the way she feels for her best friend… he’s in New York and Howie is thousands of miles away. A part of her had always hoped that he would find his passion again in the midst of all his grief and he would join her eventually. But it’s been over a year since she’d left LA for college and still, he just moves from one job to the other, sending her a few messages here and there. She had seen him at Christmas but other than that, it felt as though a huge part of her was missing. 

Doug kind of helped fill that missing piece in his own way. She loves him but she knows if Chimney turned up tomorrow and told her that he wanted to be more than friends, she would take him up on it without a second thought. She’s been in love with him for as long as she can remember; he was her first kiss and for such a long time, she had thought he would be her first everything. But life got in the way and they had drifted apart in a way that still causes an ache in her chest. His mom had died and she would always be there for him, waiting for the day he’s ready to open his heart again. 

A part of her feels selfish for loving Doug when she knows she won’t ever be able to give him her whole self. A part of her will always be longing and waiting for the day her best friend takes her in his arms and tells her that he’s ready for something more. And that’s crazy because they’re in entirely different places in their lives and if she loves him that much, surely she should wait. But she’s lonely and Doug is handsome and older than her, he’s going to be a surgeon and she thinks, if she can’t have the person she really wants, he’s a good alternative. 

Maybe that’s why, when he hits her for the first time two years later, she thinks she kind of deserves it. Maybe he’s picked up on the fact she’s not as committed to their relationship as he is. Maybe he realises she has one foot out of the door at all times, as though she’s waiting for her best friend to come sweep her off her feet. So, when he says it’s her fault, she agrees. To him, she’s agreeing that it’s her fault he’d been so angry at her for being late home. To her, she’s agreeing that it’s her fault that he doesn't own her heart in the way he should.

* * *

Howie stares down at the wedding invitation in his hands, feeling as though he’s about to be sick. It’s been five years since Maddie had left LA, and he always knew she wouldn’t just come back after college. He’d always been waiting for the day he could gather the courage and get on a plane and just take her in his arms and tell her that he loves her more than a best friend. What would she even see in him anymore, anyway? 

He works dead end job after dead end job, constantly being fired or quitting because… he doesn’t feel as though he belongs anywhere, no matter how hard he tries. It just feels as though he’s coasting through life, the days all merge into one and suddenly, he’s twenty-three years old and he’s accomplished nothing. He still lives with the Lees, his best friend lives thousands of miles away and she’s getting married to a man he’s never met. His closest friend is also like a brother to him and he’s four years younger and he feels as though he’s a bad influence on him. Kevin just follows him around wherever he goes, he always has since the year before, Evan went off to college and Kevin was lonely, too. 

It’s strange, the Buckley siblings are thriving, they’re living amazing lives - Maddie in New York and Evan got a football scholarship in Texas and they’ve gone from being four, to three and now down to the two of them. He and Kevin, neither of them college students, both of them living at home, going from one job to the next, relying on no one else but each other. 

He clenches onto the piece of card in his hand as tightly as he possibly can, resisting the urge to burst into tears. She’s not his, she never was. They were only ever best friends, they’ve never dated, they never promised themselves to each other. He’d always assumed she would always be there and he knows it’s wrong and he misses her more than anything. 

Is it possible to miss somebody that was never his to miss?

* * *

Maddie smiles as she turns her head to look at her best friend, biting down on her lip as she does. Her heart skips a beat, it’s been six years since she had last seen him in person and he looks more amazing than ever before. He’s standing there in a tux and it reminds her of prom, for just a moment, before she realises, they aren’t eighteen anymore. They are twenty-four years old and she’s getting married to the man she’s meant to love. And she does, she does  _ feel _ that way for him but if she could hold the weight of that love in both hands, how she feels for Chimney would be incomparable. 

“You look beautiful.” 

She reaches for his hand, taking a breath when he brushes his thumb against the back of her knuckles. Maddie wants him to take her away from all of this, away from Doug and the tight grip he always has on her. She’s wearing a white dress with a neckline that covers up the bruising on her neck, chosen and paid for six months ago by the man who promises her to love her, as though he had every intention of wrapping his hands around her throat as often as he could. 

If someone asked her why she stays, she’d never be able to answer. She wishes she knew; maybe it’s the lingering fear of what he’ll do to her if she does, maybe it’s because she feels as though she deserves it somehow. Her parents hate him, they’ve made that much clear but they’re still there. Her brother… he made the decision not to come to the wedding, not after… a fight he’d had with Doug a year before when he had walked in on an argument between her and the man she was about to marry. Evan’s young, her parents promise, he’ll get over it. And maybe he will, or maybe he will hate Doug for the rest of their lives together and by extension… her. 

It takes her breath away when his other hand moves to gently graze along her cheek and the world starts to spin and in her head, she begs for him to say the words she needs to hear. But then he steps back when her dad comes into the room, looking between the two of them, “I gotta say, I always thought I’d be walking her down the aisle to you.”

Both she and Howie laugh, but the sound gets stuck in her throat, tears in her eyes and it looks as though he’s going to burst into tears, too. She’d always thought that, too but instead, it’s going to be someone else waiting for her at the end of that aisle - a man with dark eyes and a smile that sends a shudder down her spine each time. 

Maybe she stays because she’s never been alone before. 

* * *

He thinks his heart might be broken as he watches Maddie dance with her husband. There’s a ring in her finger that’s practically the size of his hand and he knows he could never afford to give her anything like this. Most of the time, it’s a struggle to pay the absolute minimum rent that Mr and Mrs Lee charge him. This is the kind of life that Maddie deserves, he’d only drag her down to his level. She’s a nurse, he’s a surgeon and together… they are an absolutely beautiful couple. She’s going to have kids and she’s going to continue to move forward whilst he stays stuck. 

He sips on the bottle of beer he holds in his hand, eyes lingering on the tight hold Doug has on her waist and the way the spark no longer reaches her eyes. He’d almost said something in the wedding and maybe, if he had a little more courage, he’d have been able to. The words had been on the tip of his tongue, forming a lump in his throat. 

As she says her vows, his eyes close and he imagines a different life - one where his mom had lived and he’d not scraped by high school trying to get through the cloud of unimaginable grief that had held him back. A life where he and Maddie went off to New York just as they had planned, they’d have lost their virginity to each other, their love would be like nothing else and they’d have gotten married after they graduated college and she’d have his babies and they would have his mom’s eyes and Maddie’s smile and he would be happy. 

Reality hurts, eyes remaining on her whilst she does everything she can to avoid his gaze. Her husband doesn’t let go of her all night and Maddie Han will remain a figment of his imagination. She’s Maddie Kendall now and he’d left it too late. 

“Do you want to leave?” It’s Mr Lee’s voice that finally pulls him from his own thoughts, staring at the man who knows him so well. His own father had never wanted him, he’d never even tried to bring him up and now, he has a new son and a new wife and he’s forgotten all about him. 

“I really do.” He admits out loud, his shoulders slumping in the relief of the words because he wishes he had never gotten on that plane in the first place. But he had wanted to be there for her, he had wanted to make sure she was happy. And she seems it, as much as one person can be, he supposes. “It hurts to be here, I-I don’t think I can…” He can’t breathe, it takes everything inside of him not to let the tears fall before he’s being pulled out of the room by a familiar pair of arms and when he finally gets outside and feels the cool night air against his face, he looks at the three people who had taken him in as their own. 

Mr and Mrs Lee and Kevin, his family… all he has left in the world is standing in front of him because now, Maddie is going to have a family of her own and it kills him. “It’s going to be okay, Howard.” The kind voice of the woman who reminds him so much of his own mother pulls his attention, the tears falling before he nods his head. 

If Maddie moved on from… the  _ nothing  _ they had… he could, too.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of domestic violence.

Howie is twenty seven when he walks into the 118 for the first time, looking around with a smile on his face and that feeling that maybe he is somewhere he belongs. He’s home, or at least, he feels like it could be home because it’s the first time in his entire life he’s ever felt as though he could be good at something. He’s been floating through life for thirteen years since his mother died, barely scraping by high school, no college degree, no steady job… this is the first time he’s felt  _ passion _ for something. 

Home is never easy though, right? Finding that place where he belongs. Once, he had thought he had found it in his best friend but then she left and now she’s happily married and he hasn’t actually spoken to her in a few years. Maybe finding a place in the world would fill the gaping hole that constantly drags him down. So, he handles whatever they want to throw at him - he hasn’t stepped foot in the truck, he hasn’t helped anyone in the months he’s been there and it hurts more than anything. But he turns up every single day and he sits at dinner every single night with the Lees and listens as Kevin tells all these amazing rescue stories. 

And he smiles because it’s all he can do. It’s hard but his entire life has been hard and he’s so desperate for this to work out. He’s worked in bars, stores, restaurants, garages, everywhere and anywhere he could possibly pick up some money just to see himself through month by month. The only time he had ever felt alive was when he had saved that woman from being burnt alive and he wants that feeling back. He wants it more than ever.

And then it’s all torn away from him and he can’t help but wonder how cruel the world could be. He was happy when his dad left at eleven and then his mom died three years later and he felt as though he could never be happy again. And then he’d finally found something worth doing, something he was enjoying, a family that maybe he could be a part of… one day. If they’d let him in. 

He’s twenty eight and the person he thought of as a brother is gone, just like that. One minute he was smiling and the next… right before his very eyes, he’s  _ gone _ and Howie doesn’t think he’ll ever be the same again. He loses three people that night; the Lees just… gone with no warning. Kevin, because he’s dead and his parents because… they were never his to begin with. 

For the first time in his whole life, he is well and truly alone. No mom, no Maddie, no Kevin or Mr and Mrs Lee. He’s alone. 

* * *

Thirty year old Maddie stares down at the piece of paper she holds in her hands, trembling a little, glancing up at the door number in front of her. This was the only address she had for Howie after phoning Mrs Lee in the hope that she would know where he was. She has nowhere else to go which… sort of feels like a lie because her parents are barely twenty minutes away and she  _ could _ go home and she knows they would open their arms for her. But the embarrassment is too much.

Her parents had told her too many times to leave her husband, her mother had  _ begged _ her when she’d seen a bruise on her arm one day. She hasn’t spoken to her own parents in three years because it was just easier that way, to avoid the looks and the accusations. Doug had made that decision for her but she had agreed; her parents had already been hurt so much and they deserved so much better from her. Keeping them away was just easier and eventually, they had stopped calling and sending letters and she hopes, more than anything, that Evan is bringing them some joy that they truly deserve. As long as she hasn’t spoken to them, it’s been even longer since her little brother. 

She knows he’s back in LA, she knows he works with Howie now for the LAFD. She’d had a peek at their social media before she’d made the decision to run from New York to the place she had once called home, to the people who had always been her home. Maddie was on the run after six years of marriage and eleven years with a man who she could never truly love in the way she should have but she stayed through… fear of being alone, fear of him, fear of what he would do to her if she ever did leave because the things he did when she stayed… they were terrifying enough. 

The deep breath she takes reminds her why she’s standing there in the first place, having travelled for three days just to get somewhere she’d feel safe. Doug wouldn’t be too far behind her, she’s accepted that much - this is where she had grown up, the only place she had people, she’d be easy to track down but she had needed to see her best friend. Even if it was just one last time, she hadn’t seen him since he’d snuck out of her wedding and then eventually, she’d stopped replying to his emails and the person she had grown up with and made all those promises to… he was gone.

Her body aches as she lifts her hand to knock on the door, waiting, the tears falling almost immediately when the door opens and he’s standing there, looking… just as he always had, just older. “Maddie?” 

“Howie.” She had a speech planned, she had written it on the coach there, she’d gone through it a thousand times over, a rambling speech about how she was sorry and how she hadn’t been a good best friend but could he help her? She needed help because her husband was going to find her and when he does, he’s going to kill her and anyone who gets in his way. She just didn’t know where else to go, even if she feels guilty for dragging him into her mess in the first place when he deserves so much better. As she stares at him, she can’t think of the words, relief washing over her the second he gently pulls on her hand to bring her into his apartment with a look of concern on his face. 

“What happened?”

His hand is against her skin, the gentle brush of his fingers against the bruising on her face and she wonders why an earth she didn’t just wait for him or why she had to go to New York in the first place. If she could do it all over again, if she could get a second chance, there’s so much she would change and each path she’d take would lead her into his arms and not the arms of a man who didn’t even know how to love. Not in the right way, not in the kind way that she knows her best friend is capable of. It’s muscle memory; loving him. It feels as though no time has passed at all as her heart skips a beat and her cheeks flush beneath his touch. 

“I-I left Doug.” It seems as though those three words are enough of an explanation and she wonders if Evan had ever told him the story of what he had walked in on the year before she’d gotten married. How he had found the door of their apartment wide open because she and Doug had stormed in mid-argument and not noticed, and her little brother had to see the man she was going to marry towering over her as he screamed before… 

Evan had asked her to go with him that night, nursing his own bruised knuckles, an undeniable fear in his eyes. And if she could go back to that particular moment, she would take his hand and go with him. He’d given her a choice and she’d crawled into the arms of the man who had hurt her so much, so many times and then her brother had left and he hadn’t spoken to her since. 

He didn’t understand and she couldn’t expect him to because she didn’t understand, either. So many different people told her to leave, so many people with their hands extended out that she could have taken. Not a single one of them belonged to the only person she thinks she could have found that strength in. 

“Chimney? What’s going on?” Both their heads snap towards the blonde coming out of what she presumes is his bedroom, his hand easily dropping from her face before he shakes his head. 

“She’s just an old friend, go back to bed.” 

_ Just an old friend.  _ It shouldn’t hurt but it feels as though he’s just ripped her heart out and she hates herself for losing him in the first place. 

* * *

Chimney stares across the room at Maddie as she laughs; she’s been back in LA for over a year and he’s finally starting to see some of that person he had grown up with back. Her husband is dead and his only regret is that he wasn’t holding the knife himself. Maddie was… light and she was sweet and kind and she deserved to be loved in the most beautiful way and that man had taken it all and snuffed out her light. 

He wishes he could understand why she stayed so long or why, on her wedding day, she hadn’t told him the truth. He wishes that when Buck had told him why he and Maddie had fallen out, barely eight months before she’d turned up in LA, he wishes he could have gone to her and convinced her to leave somehow. He had known the truth before she had turned up but seeing it with his own eyes was entirely different and still, a year later, the memories of seeing her face bruised and that look in her eyes that he didn’t recognise… it still causes a rush of pain to wash over him. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget. 

He loves her. He knows that; he’s been in love with his best friend since he was five years old and he thought she was the sun. He had gone home that day with the biggest smile on his face and told his mom that he had met the most beautiful girl in the whole world and she was his best friend but one day, she would be his girlfriend. That never happened; life had gotten in the way, they had danced around each other too much, for too long and now they were thirty-one and he was about to get engaged to another woman whilst Maddie healed from the wounds of her past. 

Still, there’s so much he would change, so many things he would do different if he could. But he can’t turn back time and he can’t force the past version of himself to know things he knows now. But if he could, he’d go back to being eighteen and he would take her in his arms and he would go to New York with her and he would never let go. They’d be married, maybe even have a kid… a daughter, with his mother’s eyes and Maddie’s smle, just as he had imagined on her wedding day. His life would be different, her life would have been different because he never would have hurt her, especially not in the way Doug had. It just hurts, and he doesn’t know why, but it hurts to know that she had stayed so long, carrying the burden of this overwhelming secret when she knows he would have gone running to her if she’d just… said something. Anything. 

“Do you love her?” He gulps when he hears Hen’s voice next to him, the woman who had been his friend for the last few years. He could never bring himself to call her his  _ best friend _ , that spot had always been reserved for that little girl who had taken his hand and sat next to him that first day of kindergarten. It was for the little girl who had cried on his shoulder at her brother’s funeral and who had kissed him on the lips with the biggest grin on her face. The little girl who his mother had told him he would marry one day, promising him he would be a good husband (so unlike his own father). It was the teenage girl who had run to him in the middle of the night to be with him the moment she had found out his mom had died and had sat in his lap and held him as he cried for hours until he had fallen asleep. That was his best friend and she was standing across the room with her little brother, the two of them having reconciled the night she could have lost her life barely a year ago. 

“Who? Tatiana? Of course I do, that’s why I’m asking her to marry me.” 

Hen scoffs, “No, Maddie.” She knows him so well, his lingering stare finally glancing at Hen instead as he bites down on his lip. He hears that laugh across the room that he would recognise anywhere and his heart skips a beat and he feels so drawn to it in a way he can’t explain. “Because if you love her, Chimney, it’s cruel to Tatiana if you propose to her and she says yes. And you’re hurting yourself and I think you might be hurting Maddie, too because… she keeps looking over here and she’s sure as hell not looking at me.” 

“We’re just friends.” 

“Right, nothing about you two screams just friends, Chim. And I don’t know why you’ve been denying yourselves for so long, I don’t understand it and I’m sure neither of you do, either but… shit happens. The universe fucks us over sometimes and there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it. You think if I got half the chance, I would go back and still marry Eva after everything she did to me? But then… she gave me Denny, which is the greatest gift in the world, so if I had to do it all over again for him, then I would. And you and Maddie have been through hell and back and you’re both standing here right now and neither of you are trying to jump the wall you’ve put between yourselves and I don’t understand why. I don’t think you do, either.” There’s a lump in his throat and tears burn his eyes, a tension rising in his chest before he nods his head, maybe the universe really was screaming out to him and maybe it was time to listen. 

“I have to go.” He has to find Tatiana and tell her that he can’t be with her because even if he’s risking spending the rest of his life alone, he can’t pretend to love another person when he’s already in love with someone else. He shakes his head, ignoring the confusion on Hen’s face before he rushes out of there without another word. He has to go. 

* * *

Maddie holds onto his hand as tightly as she can, unsure if she could cry anymore than she already has over the last few days. His eyes haven’t opened and she can’t help but wonder if she’ll ever see them again. She remembers being five and rushing towards the little boy who hadn’t stopped crying since his mom had left him at school, and how his eyes, though filled with tears, had smiled at her when she had taken his hand in her own and she knew right then, that this was the boy who would be her best friend in the whole world. There was nothing she wanted to do without Howie by her side. For such a long time, it was always the two of them against the world. He got her through everything - through Daniel’s sickness and then his death, through the grief, through every teenage drama that followed. He was the one constant she had in her life and then… then it was gone, ripped from under her and she knows it’s not his fault. Not entirely. That she has a hand to play in the two of them drifting, in the loss of her best friend. 

There’s so much she would change if she could. So many things she would do differently, so many opportunities she could have had to have lived a better life. One where her husband hadn’t beaten her, a life where her little brother hadn’t hated her for a few years, a life with joy and love and her best friend right by her side becoming something more. Maddie Kendall is a person she wishes she had never been but Maddie Han, the name she had written in notebooks with hearts around it when she was just a little girl? She wishes she could be her, even if she’s thirty-one and so much has happened since then. So much that she doesn’t think Howie could ever forgive her, or open up his heart to her in that way. 

He could have died.

Maddie’s entire body trembles as she lets her eyes linger on the bandage around his head. She could have lost him to a car accident, to a piece of rebar through his head and it hurts so much because… even when they were apart, the one piece of comfort she had in her life was knowing he was out there. Howie living a good life that he deserved was the one thing she could cling onto but a life  _ without _ him? That hurt too much. She could barely breathe at the thought, even if he’s not hers. She’d rather do as he had to do a few years before, and watch him marry someone she’s not sure he truly loves, if that’s what will make him happy. 

But Tatiana hasn’t showed up at the hospital once and it breaks her heart to think that when he opens his eyes, it’s not her he’s going to want but the woman he was planning to marry. There’s so much she wishes she could change from the past but the moment he had rushed out of the station a few days before… that’s the  _ one  _ thing she would go back and change if she had only one opportunity. She didn’t want to see him in pain for even a second. The world was a better place with him in it and this so easily could have stolen the light in the lives of everyone who knew him. 

He’d called her his sunshine once, but he’s always been hers. He’d always managed to pull her home, and sometimes, when she closed her eyes in the darkest moments with Doug, it was his face she would see. The two of them running around her yard, smiling and laughing without a care in the world. Howie had seen her through hell and back and he had no idea. 

His hand twitches against her own, the smile almost immediate as she looks at him, “Howie? I-it’s Maddie, I’m gonna get a doctor, okay? But I’m… I can’t wait to see those eyes of yours, I’m so glad you’re awake.” He groans, his hand even tighter in her own when she tries to pull away and she has no choice but to stay put as she looks at him, tears making track down her pale cheeks. 

“Maddie?” 

“I’m right here,” Her other hand lifts to cup his cheek, leaning down to brush their noses together, before her eyes tightly close in an attempt to stop the tears, “I love you. I love you so much. I’m never leaving again, okay? I’ll be your best friend, forever, just like I always promised.” 

His hand is tighter in her own, tears falling through closed lids as she takes a breath, “It’s gonna be okay, Howie, you’re going to be okay.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Discussions of domestic violence

All he can think about is Maddie. When his eyes are closed, he sees her as the five year old girl he’d once known. Every memory seems to merge into one but he and Maddie are sitting alone on the grass, across from each other and when he mixes up the English for a certain word, she doesn’t laugh at him. She’s five and she somehow has more acceptance in her heart and soul than anyone he’s ever met. Her smile is bright, and he teaches her the Korean word whilst she repeats the English back to him and he thinks he can spend the rest of his life sitting outside with her, listening to her talk. 

It doesn’t matter where they are or what they’re doing, his hand is always in hers and he realises, whilst he’s sitting in his apartment alone, that he misses the warmth of her hand in his more than anything. It had been so long but lying in that hospital bed, he’d felt that overwhelming familiarity rushing through him. He misses her hand against his own, it feels cold and empty. 

There’s so much he wishes he could change, a hundred moments he could go back and just do one thing differently in the hopes that it would change their lives. Maddie,  _ his _ Maddie, wouldn’t have flinched when someone touches her, she wouldn’t jump at loud noises, she wouldn’t wake up gasping for air sometimes. The Maddie he loves, if he could have just… changed something about the past, wouldn’t have known a day of suffering at the hands of the man she loves. And maybe he wouldn’t have been so lonely for so long. 

He’s thirty-one and it’s been twenty-six years since he’d first met the little girl who changed his entire life. If he were eighteen again, he’d go to New York with her. If he were twenty-four again, he’d throw her over his shoulder and take her as far away from her own wedding as he possibly could. He can’t change any of it though, he can’t do any of it differently, it’s too late and maybe… maybe they were never meant to get their shot. 

* * *

“I don’t understand…” Her brother is staring at her as she paces from one side of his apartment to the other, over and over again as she tries to take a deep breath. She doesn’t dare look at him as he talks, holding back tears of her own, clenching her fists around the bottom of her top as she bites down on her lip. “Why don’t you just tell him?” 

“He literally just broke up with the woman he was going to marry, I can’t just… tell him, Evan.” 

Maddie stops pacing only when Buck suddenly stands up and rests his hands on either of her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. She had missed him so much during the years they hadn’t spoken to each other; she had missed out on so much of his life. College, break-ups, coming out as bisexual, joining the LAFD, getting engaged, breaking up, finding love again… she’d missed so damn much in just a few years and it breaks her heart to even think about. Her parents had forgiven her, insisting there was nothing to technically forgive her for but sometimes, she could still see the lingering confusion in her brother’s face. 

“Why didn’t you tell mom and dad about what you saw Doug do to me?” She’s been back in LA for over a year and in that time, neither she or her brother had spoken about the last time they had seen each other before then. His hands drop from her shoulders and she knows the question has come from nowhere, watching as he stumbles back, shaking his head. He’s been silent for so long that she doesn’t think he’s going to answer and she doesn’t blame him. He was only eighteen when he had walked in on something she wishes he never did. 

It’s with a sigh that he moves to lean against the kitchen counter, “You chose him. You asked me to leave whilst… tending to his wounds, with blood pouring down your face from what he did to you. I was angry at you for so long, I-I didn’t… I didn’t want mom and dad to be angry at you, too. And I get it now, I understand  _ now _ but would it have made a difference? Because mom told me that she knew, too and… you stopped replying to them. You pushed the three… no, the  _ four _ people who loved you most in the world away and stayed with him and I’m still angry at you and I wish I wasn’t. I really wish I wasn’t because I know I don’t understand but… you pushed us all away. You chose him over all of us.” 

Maddie had known; he wouldn’t talk about it, he wouldn’t even look at her whenever Doug’s name was so much as mentioned. She wasn’t stupid, contrary to popular belief amongs the rest of Buckley’s. “He made it so that as scared as I was  _ of _ him, I was more scared of being without him. He made me feel like I would be nothing or have nothing without him. I-I didn’t… the way he was, the things he did, the things he said… I was terrified. It was… complicated and I don’t know how to explain it to myself sometimes, let alone someone else but… every single time I tried to leave or tried to reach out for help, I’d be paralysed. I couldn’t breathe, I wanted to live so badly that it felt like my only option was to stay because if I left… well, you saw what he did to me when he found me. I didn’t think I was strong enough to survive him when I was barely holding on  _ with  _ him.” 

She steps forward at the sight of tears falling down his face, wanting to reach out for him but still feeling the wall between them. They had been so close once, with just five years between them but that had ended. Doug had managed to destroy four of the most important relationships to her and she can still feel his ghost between them. Her dad doesn’t move to put his hand over hers or hug her anymore, Maddie thinks that maybe he thinks she’ll break if he does. Her mom bursts into tears every single time Doug’s name is mentioned and Buck either walks out of the room or looks at her with fire in his eyes. 

“I wish I could take it all back. I-I wish I had stayed in LA with Howie when I should have. I invited him to my wedding because I thought that he would tell me not to marry Doug. I-I thought he would save me which is stupid, I know that. I just… I thought maybe if he asked me to leave, maybe I could.” She takes a breath, rubbing her eyes in an attempt to stop her own tears. 

“Maddie, one of my first memories is sitting on a picnic blanket with you, Chimney and Kevin.” His voice cracks at the name of the person they had lost and she finally closes the gap between them to take his hand in her own, brushing her thumb over the back of his knuckles, “I-I must have been… four or five, and you and Chimney are lying on your stomachs, laughing over something that I could never understand and he reached forward to brush your hair from your face and you kissed him on the cheek with the widest smile on your face. And you were happy. He was happy. That’s all I remember up until his mom died, just the two of you against the world.” 

The tears finally fall and she nods her head before he takes a breath, “I-I didn’t tell mom and dad because I wanted to protect you from their anger, even though they never did feel that way in the end. And I know you haven’t told Chimney how you feel about him to protect yourself from his rejection but I don’t think you ever had to worry about that, Mads. I think… I think it’s time to stop being scared. You’ve spent way too much time being scared, both of you have and I spent way too much time being angry at you and I’m willing to let go of that if maybe… you’re willing to let go of your fear?” 

Maddie laughs through the tears as she looks at the person standing in front of her, her little brother who’s grown so much, matured in such a way over the years they had lost with each other. She wishes she could have seen him find himself but she’s grateful for the second chance, “I don’t know how.” 

“Try being honest with him. It’s been twenty-six years, I think it’s time, don’t you?” 

* * *

Chimney doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there when the sound of his door knocking echoes through the otherwise silent apartment. It’s with a sigh that he looks at his phone, seeing that it’s two in the morning, nose scrunching up in confusion before he opens the door. The woman he had been thinking about is standing right in front of him, her cheeks a dark shade of red as she awkwardly shifts from one foot to the other.

“I love you.” 

His hands drop from the door as his head tilts in confusion, just staring at her; they’ve said those three words to each other before, mostly in childlike innocence or when they were teenagers. But it seems more than that, the intensity behind the words and the panic on her face as her chest seems to rapidly rise and fall. There’s a desperation in her eyes he hasn't seen before but suddenly, he’s taken back to the time she had turned up at his apartment unexpectedly, covered in bruises, her hair matted with dried blood. 

It’s nearly a year and a half later and she’s trembling as she stands there and he wishes he could bring himself to say something but as always, he’s left speechless, just staring at her. He watches as she takes a breath, “I-I uh… I’m in love with you. I have been for what feels like my whole life… and I know that you might not feel the same way but I just… I needed to tell you so maybe I can move on if you don’t feel the same way or I can… I don’t know. It’s selfish, I’m here being selfish which is something I’m apparently really good at because I left you when you needed me the most and then I started dating Doug because I wanted to punish you for not coming with me and then I-I uh… you don’t have to say it back, you don’t have to say anything.” 

It takes a moment for the words to settle in, realising how she’s felt the exact same way as he has - selfish. He could have gone with her, it wasn’t as though his life in LA was even worthy of staying for but he had stayed because leaving the one place he had known with his mom was too terrifying and still was. He should have gone with her. He still wishes he had. “You’re not selfish, Maddie. We both made mistakes when it came to what we needed together and what we needed alone but… you’re still the most selfless person I have ever known.” He reaches forward, taking both of her hands in his own to pull her towards him, into his apartment. “I love you, too. I’m in love with you, too. I always have been, I always will be.” 

He can feel her trembling beneath his touch, leaning down a little to press his forehead to hers as he looks into her tear filled eyes, “There is so much I wish I could change, it’s all I’ve thought about since you came back to LA, even more since my accident. I should have gone with you, we could have… we could have changed our plans. I just… I was scared, art school in New York was my mom’s dream and it was everything she wanted for herself and for me. We could have… we could have talked about it, you were my best friend… you  _ are _ my best friend.” 

Maddie isn’t shaking anymore, he can feel it as he pulls his hands from hers to rest his hands on her waist instead, a nervous smile on his face, “I’m going to kiss you now.” 

At least she laughs, that beautiful sound that instantly brings a wide smile to his face and a new felt lightness inside of him, “Not if I kiss you first.” She had always been the one to initiate every kiss they’d ever shared from the innocent kisses on the cheek when they were kids, to the ones that ended in him chasing after her and then eventually, the soft feeling of her lips against his as they danced together at prom or the gentle, tear filled kiss she had given him the night his mom had died. 

He’s the first to duck his head down, capturing her lips against his own as she wraps her arms around his neck to pull him close and he finally, after so long of loving that little girl who had so willingly accepted him and loved him, he feels as though he’s home.


End file.
